ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 22, 1997 TAG: 9702240054
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
A federal judge has dismissed an anti-abortion group's lawsuit over Virginia's campaign finance laws, ruling that the Virginia Society for Human Life is exempt from the law and so lacks standing to bring suit.
The federal ruling isn't binding on state judges. So the anti-abortion group fears it still isn't protected from injunctions that prevent it from distributing its voter guides.
Three times since 1989, state judges have issued injunctions against conservative groups' voter guides.
The VSHL filed suit in October 1995, seeking to have the laws declared unconstitutional. The group planned to pass out voter guides in the next month's election, but wanted to pre-empt any attempt by the Democratic Party to get an injunction stopping their distribution.
In an opinion issued Thursday, U.S. District Judge Samuel Wilson ruled that the group does not engage in the "express advocacy" of candidates that the laws regulate. Because the campaign finance disclosure act and other contested statutes don't apply to the group, it cannot bring suit, he ruled.
"In the face of the fact that three state courts have issued injunctions [against similar groups], it's kind of hard to square that with his opinion that the statute doesn't apply to them," said Jim Bopp, a Terre Haute, Ind. attorney representing the VSHL. His firm serves as national counsel for the National Right to Life Committee.
Wilson ruled that the anti-abortion group was not a "political committee" trying to influence elections as defined by state law and thus was not subject to the law requiring such committees to register with the state. He also ruled that the Virginia law requiring campaign literature to be labeled with the name of the party responsible doesn't apply to the group because its voter guides don't seek to influence the outcome of the election.
The voter guides offer candidates' positions on issues important to the group.
Bopp said Wilson's ruling wouldn't protect the group from future injunctions because federal judges have no power to interpret state statutes for state courts. He said he would discuss the possibility of appealing Wilson's ruling with his clients.
Wilson said at a 1995 hearing that he believed the injunctions prohibiting distribution of the voter guides, issued by state judges in 1989 and 1993, were unconstitutional "prior restraint," which violates freedom of the press and of speech. But it was the way the judges interpreted the statute, and not necessarily the statute itself, that was wrong, he said.
As a federal judge, he was reluctant to rule on the constitutionality of the state laws before the Virginia Supreme Court had ruled on the issue. He asked the state high court to interpret the laws, but that court turned down his request last year.
The Virginia Society for Human Life argued in its suit that state election laws are too restrictive of issue advocacy, when interest groups work on behalf of specific issues such as gun control and abortion.
The government is allowed to regulate activity that expressly advocates defeat or election of specific candidates, so that voters are fully and fairly informed. But the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that advocacy of issues in an election cannot be subject to the same regulation.
The General Assembly last year changed the laws in question, although Bopp said the changes do not protect his client from injunctions.
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